23yrs. old, just bought my first mercedes, 2002 sl500 $62,000
love it. Have a friend with a lesser benz that hates me because of it.Obsidian black, java int. , sport package, 3200miles when I bought it, 6000 now 4 months later.

Orlando, Fl.

 

To save everyone the math ... the average of the 16 respondents is now 40 years old.

chinche at 27 years old is not the youngest, KevinJ ties him and skymeister is currently the youngest at 23 years old.

 

I'm 40 - Joe Average!

 

Hello everyone!

I just registered on this forum because I bought my first mercedes last Saturday.

I am 26 years old from Sweden and have been in love with the SL R129 since I first saw it on TV when I was 12 years old. FINALLY I could afford to by one.

It is a silver metallic SL 320 -97, all options avalible, Panorama roof and 18" AMG wheels. Just 50.000 Km.

So, to answer your question, the R129 does apeal to the younger, but most of us can´t afford them I think.

 

Maybe it's me, but none of my friends (I'm 16 {HA Iturned 16 on Feb 5th!}) even look at the R129 as something unique. The R230 is however because it has been flaunted countless number of times by their idols ranging from the latest and greatest Rap Monguls to the Teen Pop Stars all the way to the movies and commercials and then back to reputation. No one cares that the SL/SEL has a history and a level of prestige behind it. They just see the sixteen second drop top and they think it's the most fascinating thing in the world.

R129 is classy, pure elegence. I have yet to see a R230 at any angle which can capture and R129's prose.

 

In its day, the R129 attracted just as much interest and long lead times as the R230 does now. The lead time for the SL600 when it was introduced in 1992 stretched to three years.

Times and fashions change and the R129 is no longer cutting edge; how could it be when work started on it more than 20 years ago? In my view, it still makes an excellent buying proposition and, properly looked after, will last for many years and tens of thousands of miles. Mine has just turned 77000 miles and still feels as tight and as solid as can be.

I daresay that in 2017, the R230 will look out of date, you can argue that the air vents behind the front wheels and on the hood are too fussy already.

 

blueSL I think you're right on the money but I have one question.

Were R129's flashed around in the music industry back then as cars are now?

 

I'm 20 and just traded in a 2003 BMW M3 for my SL500 and love every minute of it!

 

The SL has always occupied the dominant slot of the premium convertible market and features in the R129 like the power roof hiding behind the metal cover and the pop-up roll over bar were very new. I re-read the "first look" road tests of the car a few weeks ago and it's clear it moved auto engineering forward at least as much as the R230 has done. In the early 90's, there were three cars which competed for your attention in this area - the Porsche 928, the BMW 8 series and the SL. The 911 at the time was a much harder, rawer car.

The earliest R129s look very dated now - huge steering wheel, no air bags, cloth upholstery, lack luster 3 litre engines. You can see that in the two buttons to the side of the heater vent. In the earliest R129's, there used to be two buttons, one to operate the small storage bin above the heater vent, the second to open the glove box. When air bags were introducted, quite early in the car's life, the second button became disused and the glove box was lost to the passenger air bag. So only the the earliest cars have a glove compartment and maybe 90% of all 129s have the button blanked out. It's interesting that Mercedes never felt the need to design out the redundancy which occurred so early in the car's life.

I think the earliest R230's will look dated in much the same way. Especially when new SatNav is introduced, second-hand tyre kickers will, in the future, dismiss the early ones like mine as "one of those", especially if you cannot then get up to date CDs for the old SatNav.

The R129 has never been an exclusive car because 220000 of them were produced. If you went to a playground in Europe in the 90's, like Monte Carlo, the place was awash with them. The SL has always been reliable and represented reliable good value because it is a mass-produced car sharing components with even more mass-produced cars. In some areas of London now, the current car is a common sight, just as they will be in New York, Miami, LA, Bay Area, Boston and so on. That's the reason the after market tuners exist to differentiate your car from the ones of your several neighbours. My guess is that in Boone, NC (been there), there's less need to do so...

As for vraa's question, the SL certainly featured in music videos and was the car of choice for the well-healed; however Mercedes have only recently started working to reduce their average ownership age, so the R129 was not the car of choice for the young, well-healed. They would have been more likely in the 90s to go for a 911.

 

The R129's were certainly a status symbol and used by many musicans and used in films etc. Most recently Ludacris used a R129 in one of his videos and Britney Spears in one of hers.

Many 90's films used them too, funny enough Jim Carey drives one in Liar Liar.

Cheers

 

Not much traffic since the last average.

However, the average age stats are going to the younger numbers fast with SL320 at 26 years and M3DrvR at 20 years.

I agree totally with the younger crowd that I was mezmorized by the looks of the R129 when it first apeared locally (not many) in the early 90's. Long before I joined the MB culture.

About 10 years later ... Here I am a SL owner for the first time. What a great exterience!

I watch lots of movies. R129 SLs show up in quite a few movies from the 90s as representing wealth or good taste.

After owning for 14 months ... I still find myself standing back to find new perspectives to absorb the beauty of this car.

The typical 1/4 view shot does not capture the elegance.

For example, about 4 months after I bought, I was stopped at a red light at an interstection, while driving my Jeep.

A blond woman in a brilliant silver top down R129, with the roll bar up enered the intersection and I caught myself saying in my mind ... WOW, what a great looking car!

Wait a minute, I own one of those! Ya!

 

Ludacris video, with a 2002 SL500 Silver Arrow:

http://www2.islanddefjam.com/av/go.wvx?num=2406792074

I found it on another forum. Thought you might like it.

 

I guess I stand corrected!

 

WOW, Glad to see everyone still Excited about their SL's I've owned mine for over 3 years now close to 4 and I was 26 when I got it, took some hit from my friends saying it's an OLD mans car and stuff, but I enjoyed it. never got to me. but Unfortunatly I may be selling it soon, but hate to let it go...

 

am 21
just got my first sportscar, and hopefully not the last, a 1992 300SL a few weeks ago. i love it not because im after the sporty effect, but because it looks like a gentleman's car, smooth and classy, something you would use with your shirt tucked in and your hair neatly combed. and i love it!

of course my friends tease me that im too young to own such a car but what can i say? theres no replacement for good taste

 

I am 19 and sometimes drive my dad's 500 SL. He is 57...

 

Sorry, Raul, as a driver you don't count. I've added in your father in at 57.

Including muhri's 2 aquaintences @ say 25 years each. We are at a total of 24 respondents.

The average owner's age of these 24 owners ... 36.6 years old.

Other postings recently indicate that there are others that have not posted on this poll. I would like to here from every one.

I also wonder if SL320 and RM3DRVR, as a couple of the recently new first time R129 owners and younger owners are still happy and excited about the spring/summer top down driving comming up?

 

as an owner of a 92 300SL, im definitely looking forward to top down driving this summer!! im based in the UK now (ugh...i'll never be used to cold weather) but i'll see my 300SL for the first time sunday next week! after acquiring the car nearly two months ago!!

thats why i have been posting like mad in the various SL boards looking for info on the car.. so when i get back, i would have mastered it already

its my first sportscar and im just itching to criuse around Manila and enjoying that warm Pacific sunshine! damn i love living in the islands

 

Sleeper, from your profile I see you are 22 yeqrs old.

Enjoy the car!

 

Well, I am happy about the summer comming up, however I had a BMW 328 cabriolet before my Merc, so top down is nothing new for me.....By the way, I removed the panorama hardtop yesterday....

 

Hi all, i am 18 yrs old, and i own my own 1997 R129 SL600 and also just invested into a 2003 R230 SL55 AMG. I've always loved and wanted the classy R129's and last year when i was 17 i bought my SL600. Beautiful and classy from the outside, but a monster under the hood.

 

So far there a total of 26 owners who have posted where the writer's age is written in th post or where their profile allows me to determine the writer's age.

Of these 26 owners ... the average R129 SL owner's age is 35.3 years old.

Other postings recently indicate that there are newbies and others that have not posted to this poll.

It would be good to here from every one who owns R129 and freqents this forum.

 

I just turned 36 and have owned 2 different SL's over the last 5 years ('85 380SL & '94 SL500).

 

I have a 2000 SL600 and I am 36 years old.

 

I bought my 91300SL when I was 25 - I just turned 30 a couple weeks ago.